Russia has been banned from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics after the IOC found evidence of an “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system that has led to a series of suspensions for the country’s athletes in recent months.

However, in a bid to protect “innocent athletes” the door has been left open for Russians to compete as an “Olympic Athlete of Russia”, as long as they satisfy strict conditions that show they have a doping-free background.

Maybe this question should go in the SQ thread: Is there any single reason at all to continue this silly country-by-country quasi-nationalist version of the Olympics (and other major sporting events)? Just let all athletes compete as individual athletes and teams.

Who would pay for the training and sponsorship of the teams if they were privatized? I’d be afraid we’d miss out on some amazing athletes from remote countries if their governments couldn’t share their glory.

Maybe this question should go in the SQ thread: Is there any single reason at all to continue this silly country-by-country quasi-nationalist version of the Olympics (and other major sporting events)? Just let all athletes compete as individual athletes and teams.

Wouldn't that mean we get one team, sponsored by someone with deep pockets, who will have the most talented players and coaches, who will win everything? Professional sports organizations have a number of rules to try to even out the talent pool. The quasi-nationalist version of the Olympics is another solution.

I would prefer to stop building expensive, single-use stadiums, pools, etc. Such a waste of money, resources, and, very unfortunately, sometimes lives. The Olympics are not green by any stretch of the imagination and typically leave the host city/country in the red.

If you're looking for monetary or geographic fairness, no matter what system replaces the current one, you'd have to try very hard to make it less fair than it already is. One country like the UK or Germany outspends (and therefore far outmedals) the whole continent of Africa.

If it's one team supported by corporations and countries can't contribute (neither of which I suggested but) so be it; at least corporations wouldn't be that much less likely to spend on good athletes from one of those one-third of countries in the world that have never won a single medal and no, I'm 100% certain it isn't because they just don't have very good athletes because that number shrinks when you look at countries that have never had a successful pro football player, for example. How is this quasi-nationalist system helping them then?

One of the big changes in the Olympics in my lifetime was when they started allowing professional athletes - e.g., the basketball teams being full of NBA players, whereas (for the US) they always used to be top college players. Of course, one of the reasons for that change was that some countries (particularly in the eastern bloc, or at least those were the ones we heard about) had a different definition of "amateur" than we have the in the US. The Soviet hockey team, for example, was effectively professional -- I believe the players would nominally hold other "jobs" for which they were paid, but in fact they spent their time training and practicing.

I myself never liked the change - in particular, I always took some satisfaction that our collegiate athletes won almost all the championships regardless of playing against the semi-pro players from other countries. Fortunately, for many of the individual events, such as track & field, it doesn't make a lot of difference as there isn't a lot of big money in competing.

I think having the countries involved is supposed to aid the cause of World Peace, in that everybody's supposed to get along at least well enough, and for long enough, to hold the Olympics; and to get some of their rivalry out on the playing field, rather than on the battlefield.

This might have worked better in ancient Greece than it does now; though there is at least significant lip service paid to the idea of the Olympic Truce.

What the best athletes from the poorest countries to day have to do is move to a wealthy country, such as the Kenyan and Ethiopian runners who have gone to Bahrain (IMU, not usually a country like the US where they'd have to compete with an already well-funded group of first-world athletes). How much easier it must be for them to get a corporate sponsor. How about allowing corporate sponsors on the condition that they have to give half to an international committee that will spend that half on the areas that aren't as wealthy or represented? Let them put their logos on if they must.

I would prefer to stop building expensive, single-use stadiums, pools, etc. Such a waste of money, resources, and, very unfortunately, sometimes lives. The Olympics are not green by any stretch of the imagination and typically leave the host city/country in the red.

I’ve long thought that it would make more sense for the Olympics to have a few permanent locations that they cycle through every four years. As you’ve pointed out, for all the money host countries spend on them, they invariably wind up being a financial sinkhole. So let’s have some locations for summer games and some for winter games and cycle through them. In the interest of paying homage to the ideals of bringing people together in the name of athletics, we can put a permanent Olympics location on every continent, except Antarctica but that was probably obvious enough. Though one of the locations should be Athens in the interest of paying respect to the Ancient Greeks who came up with the idea.

I’ve long thought that it would make more sense for the Olympics to have a few permanent locations that they cycle through every four years. As you’ve pointed out, for all the money host countries spend on them, they invariably wind up being a financial sinkhole.

There's an interesting parallel to be made with cities in the US building stadiums for NFL teams there.

Quote:

So let’s have some locations for summer games and some for winter games and cycle through them. In the interest of paying homage to the ideals of bringing people together in the name of athletics, we can put a permanent Olympics location on every continent, except Antarctica but that was probably obvious enough. Though one of the locations should be Athens in the interest of paying respect to the Ancient Greeks who came up with the idea.

Good idea. And the locations should also be used for other things during the off season instead of just sitting there empty.